Well That was week one and I think it fair to say the Featherstone Cllrs have done a wonderful job. By keeping their heads in the sand they have definitely damaged Featherstone to the tune of about £40k of lost custom. The Labour party plan of a Featherstone ghost town is right on track.

Week 3 and total chaos. Most of the day has seen traffic queues all over Featherstone. This peeked tonight with every road leading in to Featherstone blocked by the biggest traffic jags Featherstone has seen in many years.

But that's not all. Station Lane was blocked this morning for 10 minutes due to a parked car and poor new footpath designs. Ross travel are based on Allison Street and have been for many years. The new footpath that extends in to the road now means that buses have to pull over the road to be able to turn in. Today a parked car and a JCB were blocking this and traffic became blocked. Not until the over vehicles were removed could traffic get by.

And there is lots more. WMDC were informed before they began bodging up the paths that the services underneath them were cream crackerd. Already the gas company at the top of the lane are looking to dig up the new paths. Best of all is the electric company. Today for the 3rd time in a week there was a power cut in station lane that cut off about 90 properties commercial and domestic. The fault has been found and a temporary fix made. The repair now looks to be going to follow the new path. As fast as the new path is laid it will be dug up by the national grid followed by gas.

As usual the cllrs that were told this would happen are nowhere to be seen

We are due to finish the project today, we endeavour to be off site and the road to be open as usual by the end of business today. We have another project starting on Wilson Street tomorrow which may require temporary traffic lights to be put on Station Lane on Thursday as we will require a crossing closure on Station Lane. This project is due to last 2 weeks and the temp traffic lights will only be required for one week of this, there is a meeting taking place with the highways authority tomorrow to see if they will allow us to use the temporary traffic lights so until this has been confirmed I unfortunately cannot give you a guarantee on the method of works, I will however let you know as soon as I have feedback regarding the meeting.

A fun set of traffic lights has arrived for up to a week on Station Lane. At peek times everything stops. The new rat run is around the precinct full of pedestrians.An interesting point raised today. Why is so much effort being made to apparently get a gas pipe to the Old KwikSave site?

You can tell its Easter as for the 3rd year running Featherstone roads come to a standstill due to roadwork’s booked for the school holidays. I should have commented earlier as many folk in Fev had all ready noticed that Station Lane is a no go area twice a day at peak times without roadwork’s due to the new quickly growing population. You just have to love Featherstone as she appears to always fight back just when those who wish she would not push her. This week Fev was stretched to the limit with road work passes that have every road in and out of Fev blocked by traffic lights. Just one problem would be a disaster. The disaster struck on Wednesday afternoon as the water main again burst this time on the Wakefield road junction. Fev has been gridlocked most of the day and has probably cost business and peoples holidays many tens of thousands of pounds. Ironically for those who have ignored the out of date services in Fev even when given the facts the locals are catching up. It makes a pleasant change to talk to people who are discussing the problem and following the growing concerns that Fev infrastructure cannot cope with the increased usage.

Dont you just love our council. After a day of complaints Yorkshire water true to their word have fixed the problem at the cross roads by 9.15am this morning. Now all the workmen have to wait until 3.30pm until someone from WMDC turns up to switch the traffic lights back on. Meanwhile not a call from our Labour Cllrs

Looks like the link road / bypass from Linpac traffic lights to Ackworth is many steps on. A mixture of possible new HS2, phase 2 of the Girnhill Estate and Nostel priory compensation is going to bring about this road sooner than the plan that was taken out of the UDP years ago. It’s an interesting area of land for many reasons good and bad. At the end of the day a huge and full development of the area on an area of land steeped in history and peppered with bell pits and tunnels. Sadly the one thing for sure is Featherstone history will not be preserved in the new green belt building gold rush.